Science Comedian

Why is the sky blue?

August 2nd, 2008

Once, when I was maybe ten years old, I asked my dad, “Why is the sky blue?”

A pretty rea­son­able ques­tion for a lit­tle ten-year-old sci­en­tist. But he wasn’t in the mood.

He said, “Go ask your mother.”

And I thought: Great, she knows.

I turned from my dad, and headed toward the kitchen, know­ing I was one step closer to hav­ing my answer.

And as I rounded the cor­ner, I was expe­ri­enc­ing the thrill of the Sci­en­tific Method. I was fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Galileo and Isaac Newton.

And, to a cer­tain degree, I was cor­rect. I was, indeed, one step closer to my answer. Not the answer, but an answer.

There she stood. I took a deep breath, and asked her, “Mom, why is the sky blue?”

And I’ll never for­get her response:

“Because I said so.”

At first, I was in awe of my mother. Later, I learned not to trust her in mat­ters of science.

(The real rea­son the sky is blue has to do with light scat­ter­ing by oxy­gen and nitro­gen mol­e­cules. The Usenet Physics FAQ of UC River­side has a good expla­na­tion – includ­ing the role Albert Ein­stein played in prov­ing it was the air mol­e­cules them­selves that were respon­si­ble and not par­ti­cles of dust or droplets of water vapor sus­pended in the air)

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Yarmulke

August 2nd, 2008

I’m a Jew from Texas – a rel­a­tively rare breed, we can’t even prop­a­gate in the wild.

So, before my migra­tion to North­ern Cal­i­for­nia – which is counter to the east­ward migra­tory pat­tern char­ac­ter­is­tic of my kind – a migra­tion which, over time, deposits us in the Sun­shine State like cal­cium car­bon­ate on a sta­lag­mite – I had the oppor­tu­nity to make soci­o­log­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tions of an uncom­mon species.

I hope to some­day pub­lish my find­ings and share with the world these curi­ous and fan­tas­tic tales.

The work­ing title of my book is The Man Who Mis­took His Wife For a Yarmulke.

Neal Stephenson on Jupiter Envy

July 26th, 2008

“For a West­erner to trash West­ern cul­ture is like crit­i­ciz­ing our nitrogen/oxygen atmos­phere on the grounds that it some­times gets windy, and besides, Jupiter’s is much pret­tier. You may not real­ize its advan­tages until you’re try­ing to breathe liq­uid methane.”

- Neal Stephenson